All My Sins Remembered
by TangledAria
Summary: Spies will spy and blood will out. Lily learns the truth about Severus Snape. Darkfic. Hints of slash as well.


Disclaimer: The universe of Harry Potter and all its characters belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic and others. Not mine. 

Author's notes: Snape/Lily, hints of Snape/Voldemort as well, so consider that your **slash** warning. 

Rating: R, for violence, sexual situations, and one bad word. 

Summary: Character study. Spies will spy and blood will out. Lily learns the truth about Snape. Darkfic. 

  


* * *

  


All My Sins Remembered 

by: TangledAria  
jentangaria@hotmail.com 

  
_"Nymph, in thy orisons,  
Be all my sins remember'd."_  
-Shakespeare, "Hamlet"; Act III, Scene I. 

  
  
He watches her in the windows. Slipping down the dusty Hogsmeade road, he stands with his thin shoulders hunched against the wind and watches her reflection in the windows. She never sees him. 

He once tried to do the same thing once in Diagon Alley, to watch her and James holding hands as they passed Ollivander's and the second-hand robe shop, but he could feel the stares of a dozen curious eyes on his back and never went there again. 

So he goes to Hogsmeade instead, when he has the chance, to watch her go about her life. 

Most times she comes alone; she has a friend on the fifth house from the end, a Ravenclaw with black hair whom he remembers graduating the year before them. Sometimes though, James accompanies her and he almost can't bear to see them there together. 

But he's grown used to his enemy now, and hardly even notices him anymore. For he can see only her. 

The clichés run rampant in his fevered brain, and the only thing he can think is that she's grown even more beautiful in the time since he's seen her last. 

He doesn't mistake the swell of her belly for anything else, and guards the information jealously. When Lucius finds out almost three whole months later, he feigns ignorance of the entire affair. 

But now, now he is merely content to watch her, to imagine his fingers tangled in her long red hair, his lips mapping the flesh of her throat once more. 

He stays away on sunny days, when the light of the sun exposes the threadbare patches in his robes. He's not vain, he tells himself, but then maybe that's not entirely true; he would be vain only for her. 

He likes how she looks on rainy days. On one particularly memorable day she forgets her umbrella and the rain plasters her hair to her face, strands of flame running over her cheeks and down her throat. 

But on the days that he kills though, he stays very, very far away. 

He fears Voldemort is starting to notice his extra-curricular activities. He hardly sleeps anymore, content to murder at the Dark Lord's whim and spend the rest of his time with her. He's arrived late to Voldemort's summons more than once, not purposely of course; only a fool would voluntarily invite the Dark Lord's displeasure. While never particularly muscular, he is getting downright emaciated. Robes only cover so much and he is not allowed to wear his mask when there are times that the Dark Lord wishes to see his naked face. 

It's Lucius Malfoy who kills her parents, Snape himself has nothing to do with it. He arrived too late to do anything useful. But when he steps over the bodies with their open mouths and gnarled fingers, he finds a photo of her. She's at King's Cross, in front of Platform 9 3/4. She had been caught unaware, half turned away from the camera, caught in profile. He takes the photo with him when he leaves. It's a Muggle photo, non-moving. It fascinates him more than it should; he grew up levitating cauldrons and bookcases, but the idea of her frozen forever is almost beyond his reasoning. 

He's studied her in the photograph and when confronted with the real thing, he matches his memory to her moving form. Her wrists aren't so thin reflected against window of the candy shop, her face not so pale. 

He almost doesn't notice when she passes just behind him, a hitch in her step the only sign she knows something's wrong. But he doesn't move, and instead remains calm because he knows any sudden movement would give him away. 

But Aurors have a terrible sixth sense, trained to know when and where Dark wizards are. She's looking right at him, eyes askance, face turned so he can see her profile reflected in the window. A flick of his wrist and a sidewalk display across the street crashes to the ground. She turns at the sound, suitably distracted, and he Disapparates away. 

The next day, he's back on High Street, waiting for her. This time she brings her friend and they walk together down the crowded street. Though she gives no outward sign of it, he knows yesterday's close call has made her nervous. 

It's a cloudy day, light enough that he can see her reflection in the windows, but dark enough for him to skulk in the shadows. 

He walks with his hood pulled low so that it covers the side of his face. He bears a long shallow cut from his temple to his chin, courtesy of a knife-wielding Muggle who didn't take kindly to being murdered. Lucius had laughed when it happened, certain of the suffering the Muggle had brought upon himself. Snape hadn't bothered to heal it, nor to clean the Muggle's blood stains from his robes. 

He leans against the Apothecary shop across from the Ravenclaw's house. Lily disappeared inside nearly five hours ago and he struggles with whether to wait for her to come out or to go inside himself. In the end, he turns to the window, looking at the potion ingredients on display inside. Daisy roots and leeches, Erumpent fluid and Bundimun secretion. Not at all like the things he uses: dried Unicorn blood and wormwood, Squib teeth and dragon claws. Forbidden. Dark. Damning. 

When he hears the door open he doesn't turn around. Raising his eyes from the window display, he finds her reflection in the glass. She casts a look around the street, eyes passing over him with hardly a thought. She's supporting the Ravenclaw, who is sobbing quietly. He almost doesn't see the wand in Lily's hand; night has fallen and the sun has long since set, hidden behind storm clouds that he never really noticed. 

He has an sudden, irrational need to rush up to her, wand or no, and . . . and . . . 

She hastens further down the road, casting glances over her shoulder as she goes. 

  


* * *

  
Bowed low on the stone floor, Lucius shivers next to him, thin pale hands skittering over blood stained marble. Snape watches those long aristocratic fingers reach up and clutch at thick immaculate robes, trembling the entire time. He summons up his best sneer, but it's lost under his mask. 

When Voldemort Apparates into their midst, they can feel it; the air burns with power, thick and choking. Lucius somehow manages to gain control of his shivering and they both bow their heads low to the floor. 

"Lucius. Severus." The Dark Lord's billowing robes flare out behind him, an inky cloud roiling in his wake. His voice is deep and quiet, a silken wave that flows over them, commanding their attention. "How wonderful to see you. Especially you Severus," a hissing drawl. "If you keep promptly answering my summons, you're going to spoil me." 

"Forgive me, my Lord." 

He waves his hand dismissively, long sleeve fluttering. "Malfoy says you've been otherwise occupied as of late. That you've been following James Potter's wife." 

Only a supreme force of will prevents him from turning to glare at Lucius's masked face. And of course it could only have been Lucius, smirking, arrogant, _jealous_ Lucius, who would betray anyone to get into the Dark Lord's favor. 

"You were lovers once, she and you." 

"Yes, my Lord," he says dully. 

"And now she is an Auror, as is her husband, championing the fight against me, against us," the Dark Lord's voice booms angrily, echoing loudly in the large chamber. 

"Yes, my Lord." He can feel Lucius's body next to him, no longer shivering with the cold but warm with the glow of his betrayal. 

"And where is she now?" 

He hesitates and the Dark Lord stops his stalking long enough to fix his gaze upon his bowed head. He can feel his stare, burning into his very soul. 

"Where is she?" A poisonous hiss, dangerous and low. 

"I do not know," he says and he knows it's a mistake. 

Voldemort's booted feet stop pacing to end in front of him. "Severus, Severus, Severus," as if he were scolding a child. He bends down, one pale hand slipping under Snape's chin, tilting his face up. The Dark Lord's other hand reaches down and removes the white mask from his face. "She betrayed you, remember? She was too good for you. Too good for a Slytherin, but never for a Gryffindor. Isn't that how it always is?" Voldemort's thumb stretches up to run over his cheek, as if wiping away imaginary tears. "But I will never betray you," he says with all the tenderness of a lover. "We Slytherins must stay together. Pureblooded and faithful to one another until the end of time." 

He hesitantly meets his Dark Lord's eyes. 

"She and Potter have gone into separate hiding at Dumbledore's insistence. Something has spooked them, they think someone has been spying on them. We all know who that spy was." His hand tightens on Snape's chin, fingers digging into bone, bruising paper-thin skin. "Where is she, Severus?" 

"My Lord," Lucius begins hesitantly. "Perhaps Severus truly doesn't know." Out of the corner of his eye, Snape can see the blonde-haired man, head half-raised off the floor, face turned to look at them. "Perhaps he was caught, and- and- she cast a memory charm on him." 

Voldemort half-turns sharply towards the other man, wrenching Snape's head with the motion. He lifts his free hand, pointing his finger at Lucius. "_Crucio_," he says, sending the blonde man into convulsions on the floor. Through Voldemort's grip on his chin, Snape can feel a shadow of the Unforgivable course through him as well, a painful tremor that is still nothing like the real thing. 

"Do not lie to me, Malfoy. You said yourself you saw them together." He finally lets up the curse, leaving both men gasping. "Perhaps you, Lucius, would like to tell me where she is." 

Lucius rolls over onto his stomach, gasping sobs escaping his lips. "I don't know," he whispers. 

Snape feels his heart clench painfully. They had been friends once, long, long ago it seemed. Their love of the Dark had surpassed any difference in age they may have had. "Honestly, Lucius," he says familiarly. "I thought you had given up such crass sentimentality." He meets Lucius's eyes through the mask, those cold grey eyes he remembers so well. "Hogsmeade," Snape says, still looking at Lucius. "She has a friend who lives five houses from the end." 

"There," Voldemort purrs. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" He runs his finger over Snape's cheek again, Lucius still gasping on the floor. "But I won't tolerate insubordination among my Death Eaters, even among those so - faithful - as you." Still holding Snape's chin, he bends down. His breath is cold, his grasping fingers like knives. "_Crucio_," he whispers, before covering the other man's mouth with his own. 

  


* * *

  
The rain trickles into his eyes, warm from the summer heat and salty with his sweat. It curves down the gaunt hollows of his cheeks, dripping off the sharp edges of his jaw. 

He waits for her in front of the Ravenclaw's house, no longer bothering to hide his intentions. His black robes are soaked through, his long hair hanging in clumps down his face and shoulders. 

He holds the white mask in his hand, fingers poked through the eyeholes, thumb running over the sculpted lips. The strap is twisted tight around his wrist, his hand pale and striped with blue veins. 

He can see them pacing inside, a curtain drawn back from time to time. Lightning flashes periodically, arcing through the sky like a curse from a wand. He tilts his head back, lets the rain wash over his face. The magically enchanted street lamps flicker in the downpour, but stubbornly refuse to go out. 

It's almost midnight when the door finally opens. Light spills from inside the house, a flood of gold whole and bright like the rising sun. In the seconds it takes his eyes to adjust, he can hear voices; the Ravenclaw is pleading, begging Lily to stay. Gradually his sight returns, and he can see the black-haired girl pulling on Lily's arm, trying to draw her back inside. 

This is the Lily he remembers; Gryffindor through and through. But not stupid. Undoubtedly she has been watching the rooftops, the alleys, the sky, waiting for a raiding party to show up. But now, now that she knows it's just him, just one Death Eater, her Gryffindor bravery shines forth. 

A Slytherin, he tells himself, would have waited until just before dawn, for time to eat away at their target's resolve, for sleepiness to take over. But then, a Slytherin was always the predator, wasn't he? Never the prey. 

She walks down the stairs, wand flashing like a sword in the flickering light. "You want to get this over with?" she calls across the street. Brave, foolish Gryffindor. 

She's paler than he remembers, her face bright like the moon at zenith. Her belly is swollen, while her arms and face seem thinner, as if all the weight has shifted in some terrible migration. 

He wonders then if her eyes are as green as he remembers. 

She stands there, waiting for him to make the first move. He'd heard the Ministry had given the aurors previously unheard of powers; Lily could have killed him without a second thought, but she was waiting for him to prove his guilt, to cast an Unforgivable. Honorable, foolish, _stupid_ Gryffindor. 

They remain there, frozen still for several moments, no sound save the falling rain and the rumble of thunder. 

And then she moves; he sees the flicker of her eyes, a glance to the side watching for an unexpected attack. She spreads her feet shoulder-width apart before she cries, '_Petrificus Totalus_!' 

He side-steps the spell easily, letting it smack into the bricks of the equipment shop behind him. Lazily, as if he hasn't a care in the world, he withdraws his wand from his robes. 

He wants to cry then, sob like he hasn't for years, not since his mother had died. She was still using spells a first year learned; it would be so easy to kill her, so terribly, fucking easy. Laughter bubbles up in his throat, mad, hysterical laughter. He forces it back down before it can betray him, lifting the wand instead. He needs to do this now, he tells himself, before she can get any closer, before he can see those green eyes, before the swell of her belly reminds him that hers isn't the only life he's taking. 

'_Avada-_' 

She launches herself forward, practically throwing herself at him, and he's genuinely surprised. He reflexively takes a step back, wand jerking higher in his hand. 

He'll never know if the spell would have worked, if the intent behind it had been true, because when she sees his face, he knows it's all over. She slows down half-way across the street and finally stops, feet plodding dully on the road. She whispers his name, "Severus?", a question and a cry all at once. 

The rain swells, coming down harder, and she's right in front of him, close enough to touch. She seems to realise the same thing, and reaches out with one pale thin hand for his black-clothed arm. Her fingers skate the edge of his wand arm and he jerks back before she can gain a solid hold. The white mask slips from his fingers, the thin strap unwinding from his wrist, the mask spiraling out and down to fall to the ground. 

"Severus?" she whispers. "Oh, no, not you." 

He hates the way she sounds, the weight of sadness and pity in her words. 

"I'd heard you disappeared, that no one had seen or heard from you, but I never thought. . ." 

_. . . you were a traitor. _

. . . you were a Death Eater. 

. . . you were a murderer. 

"Oh Severus," she whispers again, and it's not what he _wants_. He wants her hate, her anger, her rage. Not this heart-breaking pity that is going to bury them all. 

"Don't," he cuts off harshly, as she moves towards him again. 

"Please don't make me kill you," she says, and he wants to laugh at that, a short bark of incredulous laughter, but he knows she's telling the truth; she could kill him if she wanted. "Talk to me," she pleads. "What's happened to you?" 

He raises the wand again, half intent, half wanting to force her into action. 

"How can you have fallen so far?" she asks instead. 

His eyes flash at that. "I have not fallen," he hisses. "I have risen to a level far beyond your meager comprehension." 

She steps forward again, close enough that he can feel her breath whisper past her cheek. "A murderer? A torturer of children? How is that any sort of ascension?" 

He looks away. 

"What happened to your mother?" she asks. "Weren't you going to go home and help her with her potions shop?" He can remember telling her that in the darkness of the prefect's bathroom, huddled with her head on his chest. '_She's waiting for me to finish school. We're going to open a shop in Knockturn Alley. Then I can finally get out of here, away from all this._' 

"She's _dead_," he hisses with enough acid to force her back. 

"I'm so sorry Severus." 

"Don't be," he says harshly. 

Suddenly, before he can think to even push her back, she reaches up to tangle her fingers in his hair, pulling him down to kiss on the lips. The rain pounds down against the pavement, loud in his ears. It's the only thing he can hear, beating in time with the pounding of his heart. 

It's just as he remembers, and he returns that much remembered kiss, his hands reaching up to embrace her as had so many times before. 

His eyes slide shut, a faint vision of pale skin and long eyelashes before he closes out the world entirely. 

He reaches up higher, further, running a hand over her cheek, sliding his fingers back into her hair, long red hair wet and heavy with rain. 

She has her hands on his shoulders, pushing down to press harder against his lips, trying to compensate for his taller height. 

Thunder cracks loud in the distance, the rain falling even harder. The water courses down his face, over the knife-scar he never healed, down into his robes. 

But the only thing he can feel is her, _Lily_, Lily Evans Potter in _his_ arms. He half-smirks against her lips, reveling in the thought that he's kissing James Potter's wife. 

She seems to realise it as well, and breaks away, sinking gently back onto her heels again. Looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes, he can see the regret there. But she doesn't say anything, not the 'We shouldn't have done that' he knows is on his lips. Instead she lets her hands fall from his shoulders, one lingering to trail down his chest. When she finally meets his gaze fully, he can see the sadness there. 

"Come with me," she pleads. "Albus would be happy to see you." 

"Don't be stupid," he says, though without rancor. "I've no desire to spend the rest of my life in Azkaban." 

"But you'd prefer this?" 

"I've made my decision," he says, stooping down to retrieve his mask. 

"Severus, please. Don't go. Let's talk for a little while at least." 

Lightning flashes again, and she turns away, letting the rain wash over her. 

When she turns back, he's gone. 

  


* * *

  
The hand traces the bones of his face, a finger running over his cheekbone, a thumb on his chin. It may have been a loving gesture once, he can't remember. 

"Severus." And he takes that hissing whisper as a command. He lifts his face, following that pale hand up to a face he can see every time he closes his eyes. 

"Master." 

"Is she dead?" 

"No," he answers letting his gaze fall to the floor again. 

"Severus," he whispers again. "You've failed me again. So many times." 

"Forgive me master." 

Flames flicker in the fireplace, a blazing fire that he cannot feel. There's only the stones, cold beneath his hands and knees, and the hand upon his face, tracing a path of ice across his forehead. 

Voldemort leans forward, hand slipping down, cold fingers tightening around his throat. "You're not thinking of betraying me, are you child?" 

"Never, master," he says with as much sincerity as he can put in the words. 

A pause that stretches out until he knows it's far, far too long. 

  
  


_~finis~_

  



End file.
